


Aconite's Family

by NamelessBaroness



Series: Strange Magic Week 2017 [4]
Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 13:05:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11944842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NamelessBaroness/pseuds/NamelessBaroness
Summary: For the 2017 Strange Magic Week Saturday prompt of 'When We Are Old.'Aconite, Crown Princess of the Dark Forest, enjoys her Uncle Sunny's 75th birthday party with her parents and cousins.





	Aconite's Family

Aconite always felt most at home among her cousins. Her blonde Aunt Dawn and dark, elvish Uncle Sunny had somehow produced a whole brood of children who looked just like the crown Princess of the Dark Forest. A fact slightly remarkable, considering the very different… origins of both fathers. But since the mothers' were sisters, no one really made much comment on it. And here, among them, Aconite could enjoy, for once, being just another one of the crowd, and among the youngest. It was always a huge relief after all the pressure of being the eldest, and only, when at home.

Today, a party celebrating Sunny's 75th birthday, was a particularly delightful occasion.

Her wizened little uncle presided over the party from a comfy chair at the head of a table of his cheerfully bickering children, most of whom were old enough to have children of their own. His hair had greyed, and his face was a landscape of wrinkles, but his smile and eyes had not dimmed in the least. Or so Dawn, regal looking with her long white hair, kept telling anyone who would listen. How much her Aunt and Uncle were _disgustingly_ in love was, more or less, the favorite joke of both the Dark Forest and the Fields of Light.

Aconite's own mother and father were on the floor beneath the other end of the table, giggling in a tumbled tangle of their grand nieces and nephews. Aconite was their only child, and she had not yet found her mate. So, the Bog King and Marianne practiced with Dawn and Sunny's grandchildren, until their own might appear.

Three quarters royal, or not, no party within this family could be a tame occasion. The children shrieked and raced around merrily. Despite Dawn's vociferous objections, Bog and Marianne organized a jousting tournament wherein some of the smallest children rode on the backs of the largest. Or their parents. Or Bog, who alone of all the senior generation showed no signs of aging. Dawn got her revenge by sneaking her hottest spices into Bog's soup, and insisting of getting her “Boggy Woggy,” a nice big glass of water, after he nearly choked. (Why her father and Aunt always played out this farce, Aconite never understood, but it never failed to make her mother and Uncle Sunny Roar with laughter.) And when the youngest grandchild demanded to be lifted up to the table so she could, “Give Gwamps a bufday kiss,” she fell over onto the cake and disappeared in a pile of fluffy frosting.

All in all, Aconite found the hubbub so comforting that, after a glass of wine, she fell asleep, smiling to herself, near the bonfire. It had been a long, hard week at home.

“Sweetheart, wake up. Everyone else has left. Your Mom and Dad are ready to go home.” Aconite woke, being gently shaken by her Aunt, and the recipient of one of Dawn's million-sunbeam smiles. Over Dawn's shoulder, she could could see the Bog King and Queen talking earnestly to Sunny. Snippets of their conversation drifted to her.

“...very special birthday present...”

“...but how will she...”

“...our daughter, or not?”

“Please,” Sunny said, as forcefully as he ever said anything. “I don't know how many birthdays I have left, and I want her to know. I think she deserves to know.”

Aconite tried to ignore those words, and her uncle's implied mortality, but Dawn gasped and suddenly squeezed her hand. When she looked into her aunt's face, she was staring back at her, wide eyed. Aconite couldn't decipher the look she saw there.

Across the clearing, her own mother looked equally as lost, but her father just nodded.

“Aconite, child! Git over here. Your uncle has some words of wisdom to share wit ye on this auspicious anniversary of his birth,” he bellowed.

“Yeah, that was a stellar introduction, Bog,” Sunny grumbled.

“Ye know I keep my best material to myself,” Bog replied, and wound an arm around his wife's waist.

Aconite crossed to the group, Dawn trailing behind her.

“Happy Birthday, Uncle,” she said, trying to put all the warmth she felt for him in her tone. But Sunny only smiled, wanly. Unsure she looked to her mother, and was surprised to see that Marianne was not only still in Bog's embrace, but that Dawn had come up on her other side. The sisters each had an arm around the other. The trio were all still and wide eyed. If Aconite hadn't known them as her fearless family, she would have said they were scared.

“Give me a birthday kiss, if you would, pretty girl” Sunny told her. “I bet you can do it without falling in the cake.”

“The cake's all gone,” she replied, as she leaned down and pressed her lips to his cheek.

“Doesn't make you any less skilled,” he quipped, but without his usual pep.

“What did you want to tell me?” she asked, in a low, anxious voice.

He took her hand in both of his, and patted it, gently. “Love comes in lots of sizes, shapes, and colors. I love your Aunt. And your mother and father. And my children. And you.” He squeezed her hand. Aconite nodded and tried to look like she understood where he was going. “And I've done some really ridiculous and sometimes stupid things for all of you.”

“You can say that again,” she heard her father mutter, behind her. Then a familiar thud-grunt that she knew meant her mother had kicked him in the shin.

“After they were married, Bog and Marianne tried and tried to have kids. They tried for ages, but nothing worked. Even the Sugar Plum's magic failed them.”

“But I thought--”

“Hush,” her mother said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her parents and Aunt Dawn still standing together. And was Aunt Dawn holding her father's hand, now?

“Not long after that, they told us, Dawn and I, that they were giving up. They thought they were never mean to have kids, and they would have to adopt a suitable heir from the Dark Forest.

“That very night, we found out that Dawn was pregnant--”

“Again!” Aconite's aunt sang cheerfully out.

Sunny gave a little chuckle. “Again.” He shook his head. “We both had the same idea at the same time. We stayed up all night, talking about it, and went to visit your parents the next day.”

Aconite's mind was suddenly a whirl. She saw, clear as day, where his wandering story was going to lead, and her racing mind saw how it all made _sense_. She almost interrupted Sunny, but then saw his hands trembling ever so slightly, and remembered how frightened Bog, Marianne, and Dawn had looked, and let him continue. She could be her father's daughter, put his leadership lessons to use, and make sure this all went exactly right. For everyone she loved.

“The four of us talked our idea over for days. When we had talked ourselves out, and all agreed, we all left on an extended, 'adults only, family vacation.' I don't think Dawn's dad ever forgave us for leaving him with all the kids!”

The Bog King barked out a laugh that said, clear as words, that he thought his father-in-law had deserved every ounce of trouble his nieces and nephews had given him.

Aconite felt a hand on her shoulder; she hadn't seen Dawn come up behind her, and she spoke very softly. “When you were born, on that trip, we all fell in love with you at first sight. But you came home in Marianne's arms. No one but the four of us ever knew you were actually our daughter.” Dawn moved to stand beside Sunny, and he reached up to take her hand.

This was why her father worked her so hard at being a strong leader; if it was every discovered she was not his child, she could still rule, but she would have to do so by right of prowess. This was why all four parents had just laughed and said, “Well, one is as good as another,” when she had swapped places with the “cousin” she most closely resembled for two weeks. Why she could see her mother fight herself so hard from trying to shape her daughter into being just like her. And why she had always felt so much love from all four of them.

Now she could decipher the look she had seen on all their faces. Fear, but also hope.

“We didn't give you away because we didn't love you...” Sunny started. “We gave you to Bog and Marianne, so that they could love you, too--”

Aconite threw herself on her knees, and wrapped Sunny up in a huge hug. He tensed for a moment, but then she felt his shoulders go soft, and his arms around her. Joy bubbled out of her in peals of laughter.

She pulled back so she could look at him. “I can't say I had any idea, but it makes a lot of sense. And it doesn't change anything.”

She smiled at Sunny as tears coursed down his cheeks. Then she pulled him in for another hug. “I love you, Little Daddy.”

He made a noise that was half sob, half gasped laugh, and pinched her cheek. “Scamp.”

“Little Daddy,” she heard Marianne muse from behind her. “So, does that make you Big Daddy?”

“No,” was Bog's flat response. Marianne laughed.

“Oh yes it does!” she crowed.

“No.” Marianne just laughed at him even more.

Aconite bounded to her feet and embraced a still unsure Dawn. “And I love you, Sweet Mommy.”

Marianne's laughter cut off, abruptly. “Hey! Then what does that make me?” she grumbled.

Bog laughed and gave her a playful shove. “I can't wait to find out.”


End file.
